


Eventide

by 100hearteyes



Series: closest thing to crazy [5]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst and Feels, Clexa Week 2020, Clexaweek2020, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Free day, Pining, Queen Clarke Griffin, all the feels, day 7 free day, lots and lots of pining - on both sides, political courtship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100hearteyes/pseuds/100hearteyes
Summary: Clexa Week 2020 - Day 7 - Free Day“Can a queen ever marry for love?”"Love is weakness, Your Majesty."
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Series: closest thing to crazy [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1233809
Comments: 43
Kudos: 332
Collections: Clexaweek2020





	Eventide

**Author's Note:**

> a special thanks to butmakeitgayblog for beta'ing and cheering me on 🙌 and to dreamsaremywords for helping me evade the pitchforks and torches 😌
> 
> This work was originally posted on Tumblr.

“Your Majesty?”

A queen did not start.

A queen did not get distracted while being courted by a handsome foreign duke, either, but Clarke had never been quite like her peers, for better and for worse.

She dragged her gaze from the horizon line and met the kind eyes of Duke Finneas; a boy who meant well but could never be her equal match.

Perhaps he too meant well. Though Clarke’s heart yearned for the kind of devotion he would give, her brain craved a wicked mind like hers. Someone just as brilliant and terrible as her.

Someone else.

“You are distracted today.”

He said it kindly, amusement clear in his voice, and Clarke hated him for it. Still she bowed her head, as she should, and blushed like the besotted girl she was supposed to be.

“My apologies, Finn.” He preened at hearing the sound of his nickname, as he had asked her to call him by it countless times before. “I sent the best of my Queensguard to the border and they are expected to return today. I can barely wait to hear whatever news they bring me. And I am… naturally worried about their safety.”

He smiled softly at her. “Few would be so concerned about the lives of those who are sworn to protect them. You have a noble heart, my queen.”

The irony almost made her smile.

\--

The Captain of the Queensguard knelt before her, head bowed and a fist closed upon the left breastplate of ornate, light grey armor.

“As I am sure you remember, Your Majesty, your cousin, Earl Aden, lost both his parents to the harsh bite of winter this year. He has requested to spend the next winter with you, so as to avoid further tragedy.”

Clarke nodded, thinking fondly of the boy with unruly blonde curls and a gentle smile. “I shall make arrangements in that regard. Is there anything else?”

“Your Majesty, the rest of the information I bring you,” distrustful eyes landed on Prince Finneas, “is meant for your ears only.”

Clarke did her best not to roll her eyes. The Captain of her Queensguard was extraordinarily competent, dedicated, and brave, but had a drastic tendency to be dramatic. There was no need for such showmanship, yet the Captain seemed intent on fanning out feathers and strutting back and forth like a peacock.

“If you say so, Captain,” she conceded at last. “Would you care to accompany me to the balcony?”

The Captain stood up and the two of them strolled past the thick curtains that separated the throne room from a balcony that oversaw acres upon acres of beautiful, green fields and thick forests.

Clarke walked up to the railing, resting both her hands on it. At times like this, it was soothing to feel the rough stone under her palms, scraping at the fair skin.

It grounded her.

She steeled herself as she felt the Captain sidle in next to her.

“Did you have a safe trip home?”

Clarke felt more than she saw the Captain nod next to her. She hadn’t expected any different. When she glanced at the elegant figure next to her, she found the Captain’s gaze trained on the horizon.

“What sensitive information is this that you requested a private audience?”

Green eyes finally met her own, dancing with mischief and something else tender and forbidden. “Everything was in order while we were there.”

Clarke raised an eyebrow. “So you wasted your queen’s precious time to tell her everything is exactly as it should be?”

The sky was painted in broad, reckless strokes of pink and purple, and the sun had started to hide behind the skyline. The moon would soon take its place on the throne with the stars as her witness.

“I would not go so far as to say it was a waste of time.” The Captain’s tone was teasing, but laced with fondness. “I gave you the chance to see the sunset, I know how much you like it.”

Clarke liked the night best. It was at night that stolen moments were a solution rather than a problem and sneaking, when the palace was cold and silent, didn’t feel so scandalous anymore. Sunsets were the promise of night. A promise that just for a few hours, she could take the crown off her head, leave the corset on the bed, and be just Clarke. The girl in love with another girl.

“Your absence was felt.”

Lexa’s lips twisted minutely. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper. “Be careful, my Queen. The walls have ears.”

The Captain’s cautious words were betrayed by the tips of long fingers brushing against Clarke’s on the balcony rail.

Their hands were concealed by coats and dresses, but Lexa’s touch was featherlight nonetheless. It still gave Clarke pause; her entire body’s focus was on the points where their skin came into contact and her heart was a fist banging at the doors of her chest. It wanted out, as it always had; it yearned to flee its golden cage and tell the secrets the walls around them would have killed to hear.

“The stars have eyes, too.”

“Luckily, they haven’t mouths to tell a secret.”

Lexa’s words may have been meant to be soothing, but they awakened Clarke’s mind. They reminded her of the boy in the throne room, of long walks along the palace gardens and the crown atop her head.

“Duke Finneas of Traisson will be staying at the palace for a few weeks. He has stated his intention to court me.”

It was only because she was so attuned to Lexa’s touch that Clarke felt the sudden absence of delicate fingers against her own, so light had the pressure been to begin with. Nevertheless, it felt like a stab to her chest. The world around her dimmed, colors became duller. Clarke felt trapped in a world in tones of grey.

“He took me to the orchards. It seems to be a popular spot for courtship.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We found this… carving on a tree. Very queer.” A smile played at the edge of her lips, teasing at more carefree times. She found it mirrored in the Captain’s clever eyes. “Couples ought to be more discreet, don’t you think?”

“They ought to.”

\--

“Can a queen ever marry for love?”

The bench they sat on, made of stone only, wasn’t the most comfortable to perch on. However, the way the moonlight slanted and made the orchards look like a pathway to heaven more than compensated for a stiff behind. When she turned and saw how Lexa’s features looked in the same light — cheekbones sharper, lips fuller and eyes prettier than she had ever seen them —, Clarke realized she could spend days sitting on that bench, never moving.

Lexa looked like those otherworldly spirits mythology books told tales about, so impossibly, painfully beautiful one may turn to stone just from looking into her eyes. Clarke would’ve taken that risk. She would’ve dared never moving again for just one chance to bask in the glow of Lexa’s eyes. For all of the Captain’s aloofness and penchant for speaking as few words as possible, her eyes spoke loudest than any Clarke had ever seen. Their expressiveness… The way they could never hide what Lexa was feeling… Clarke had tried to replicate them on paper countless times, only to come up short. She’d usually get the shape, the lights, and the shadows right, but— something in those eyes was simply unrepeatable.

Human hands couldn’t recreate it. Lexa had been shaped by the gods, and her eyes were the map to eternity.

And Clarke was always oh so close to unlocking the secret, to reaching the summit, but something always pushed her off a cliff and sent her hurtling back to the ground.

“Love is weakness, Your Majesty.”

Clarke was used to the impact. It didn’t hurt any less. Still, she stood, then and again, and braced herself for the climb. One day she would make it to the top.

“And civilizations are fickle. History is ephemeral. We live and die and whatever mark we leave on this world can easily be erased by war and pillage. Love is forever.”

“It lasts only as long as those who feel it.”

“No,” she countered, stubborn as ever. “It lasts longer. Love is immaterial, it lingers in the air around us, beneath our breaths and through this life and the next. Castles and parchment stay here until someone burns them. Love travels with us to the afterlife.”

Lexa stood up without a word and waited for Clarke to do the same, before taking off on a brisk pace towards the castle.

Catching up to Lexa was neither easy nor dignified, but Clarke eventually fell into step with the Captain, who took pity on her and slowed her pace to a languid stroll. Now going at an appropriate pace for a queen, Clarke took her chance to admire the trees around her, with ripe fruit hanging from thin branches and pulling them towards the ground.

No matter the heights one reached, gravity always did its bidding and pulled one back to earth. Clarke felt its effect now. She had reached for the stars once and been pulled so violently back she’d lost her footing. Then again, and again, and again. Every time, Lexa was there to catch her fall. And Clarke would swear the earth had turned upside down, it had to have, for Lexa was the very stars she had been trying to grasp.

How lucky she was, to touch the stars without having to lift her feet off the ground.

It had only been much later in life, when she’d been told to find a husband or doom her kingdom to ruin, that Clarke had realized just how cruel it all really was — the stars would always be within her reach but she would never be able to catch them.

Why love a star if you cannot have her heart?

As they neared the edge, Lexa halted, eyes locked on a tree in one of the final rows. Clarke followed her gaze and felt her lips sketch an outline of a smile.

Feeling reckless, Clarke followed a short, but uneven trail towards the tree and laid a hand on the rough bark. Her palm grazed the bumps and ridges of an age old carving and she read the words without seeing them.

_L + C_

Feelings cut into wood a lifetime ago, indelible as they were immutable, able to endure generations for the robustness of their canvas. Only human hands could erase them; only human words could disprove them.

Clarke felt Lexa’s presence behind her and turned around, her hand never leaving its home. They shared a secret smile, although Lexa’s was somber as her eyes swept over the entire orchard. One of many trees. As if it ever fell, it could be replaced with another. The earth it drank from and gave its strength to, however, could not.

Clarke knew the knife was coming before it embedded itself in her heart.

“If we are to be judged at the gates to heaven,” Lexa started, voice not quite trembling, though thin and weighed down by regret, “let it be because I failed my heart rather than the people I am sworn to protect, above all you.”

Clarke knew that song from heart. Lexa would’ve died before being selfish and taking something, or someone, for herself. And Clarke would’ve given her the world, yet she couldn’t afford to relinquish the political hold on her own heart.

Clarke and Lexa held the axe in their hands and little by little they were chipping away at the trunk. Human hands and human words.

Lexa turned around, ready to return to the palace. She stopped only at the sound of Clarke’s voice, scraping like sharp claws against the walls of her throat. “One day they will weigh my heart and find it heavy with sin and regret. None greater than for allowing the world to convince me to let go of you.”

\--

“Duke Finneas proposed today.”

Clarke could see Lexa stiffen despite the dim light. The Captain turned on her heels and approached the window, laying a quivering hand on the parapet, back turned to her sovereign.

It was unusual for the Queen to visit her Captain’s quarters. The rumor mill surely would’ve started running the moment Clarke stepped inside Lexa’s chambers if not for the circumstances they found themselves in.

Lexa’s room was as Spartan as could be in a royal palace. Moonlight shrouded it in mystery, much as it did its owner’s expression, whose features were unreadable from ten feet away.

Words weren’t a clue, either, when spoken blankly. “Have you given him an answer?”

Clarke desperately wanted to let the ensuing silence speak for her, but she knew she owed Lexa a proper answer. She, who helped take down their tree, should swing the axe.

“I said yes.”

For a moment, Clarke thought she saw Lexa’s knees buckle and she might collapse. However, the Captain stood tall and brave, and Clarke admired her so for her stalwart asceticism.

“I see.” Lexa’s voice was brittle, no more than a murmur, and it was only the grim silence that carried it to Clarke and cut her with it.

Clarke bled, and with the pain came resolve. She took a step forward, then another, and a third. A deep breath later, she’d gathered the courage to take the leap.

“It’s my last night of freedom. We could finally—”

“No,” Lexa interrupted, turning to face her.

The Captain’s tone left no room for discussion, but Clarke had never been one to be content with the space she was assigned. She felt the need to push the walls, expand the perimeter and win back the room she had been denied.

So she stepped closer even, broaching Lexa’s personal space. “I cannot fathom a world where I don’t know the taste of your lips.”

Lexa’s eyes shone with agony, as though Clarke had struck a dagger to her gut and was twisting, and twisting, and twisting. They were mere inches asunder, so close Clarke could feel Lexa’s shallow breath on her cheek. She couldn’t remember a time there had been less than the width of her crown between them.

“You can’t say things like that, Clarke. Not when—”

Lexa reached for Clarke’s face, but froze before allowing herself to touch. Her hand hovered, fingers yearning and twitching minutely above a pale cheek. “I shan’t let you disgrace yourself for me.”

Clarke closed her eyes, sighing, mustering the courage to lean away from Lexa’s absent touch and speak the words that lingered in the back of her mind since she’d said yes.

“Then I am letting you go.”

Lexa lowered her hand as though she’d been burned, but made no other motion to draw back. She remained steadfast as Clarke watched the questions flit across her eyes, all of them going unasked.

All but one.

“Why?”

Clarke swallowed, though it did nothing to untie the knot in her throat. “I am setting you free,” she husked, resisting the ever-present urge to take Lexa’s hands in hers. “I can find another captain, someone you would recommend. Just… Please go, Lexa. Find someone else. Love someone else. Be happy.”

This time, Lexa recoiled, face twisting with resentment. She would have looked less affronted had Clarke slapped her.

For once, Clarke wished the stars would bear witness to one of their trysts and grow mouths to yell at Lexa to go and never look back — to love someone else, anyone else. Someone who would not chain her to a love story without closure.

No great epopee ever ended with a broken heart.

“I will not leave, Clarke. I shall stay and see you married and love you like the day I carved my soul into a tree.” Lexa took a step towards her, closing the rift she’d created moments ago. Clarke counted the lashes resting on the elegant bow of her cheeks, long and dark and thick like the night that hid them from prying eyes and outstretched ears. Lexa’s lips were parted and Clarke would have given her kingdom to be able to brush a finger over the bottom one; to feel the supple flesh give under her thumb. Longing green eyes danced between Clarke’s own and dropped to her lips for just a moment, before once again plunging into pools of midday sky blue. “Who I love is not my choice to make. My heart has never been my own, Clarke. I believe you’ve held it in your hands since long before we were even born into this life.”

No great tragedy ever ended with a smile.

\--

Clarke was dressed in white and gold when the letter arrived.

Amongst a thousand apologies, Finneas relayed about how he had fallen in love with one of her ladies in waiting and decided to run away with her before the wedding. Clarke would have felt humiliated, if she’d cared for anything except the way her heart sang for joy.

She was free.

Clarke all but ran up stairs and down corridors, towards the hall where she knew her most faithful soldier stood waiting and suffering, withering under the weight of their most dreaded day.

There Clarke found her Captain, and something about her (perhaps the light shining in from the window and setting her hair on fire or the way her eyes widened with concern when Clarke barged through the heavy double doors; maybe it was simply that freedom made everything look twice as beautiful) almost propelled Clarke to start crying a river at the mere sight of her.

So focused was she on the object of her adoration, Clarke didn’t register everyone else filing out of the room at the flick of the Captain’s wrist. It was but a coincidence that the moment the door closed behind the last intruder, Clarke fell to her knees at Lexa’s feet, taking flummoxed hands between her own. Her fingers trembled, but she had never felt so steady.

“He’s gone. He ran away with one of my maids.”

The stricken look on Lexa’s face — the tragic, mechanized selflessness — made Clarke love her just that little bit more. “Your Highness, I am _so_ sor—”

“Don’t you finish that sentence, Captain, for I am not.”

Clarke brought Lexa’s hands to her lips and kissed the knuckles one by one, tasting the salt of her own tears. When she looked back up, she found them mirrored in Lexa’s eyes. “What will you do now?”

The question yanked a laugh from Clarke, wet with tears and husky with bliss. She brushed a kiss to long fingers and held Lexa’s burning gaze, unfaltering.

“I swear myself to you, my love,” she whispered reverently. “My heart is your heart, my soul is your soul. My life is now yours. I needn’t a ring to speak my vows.”

“Clarke, you can't—”

“I can,” she stated, pushing to her feet, “and I will. Let the people know I’m no less of a queen without a man at my side.”

If anything, she would have been less of a queen for not being brave enough to follow her heart, Clarke decided. How could she be expected to make hard decisions for her people if she couldn’t make them for herself?

“What about the throne, Clarke? Your kingdom needs an heir, or else it will be at the mercy of its enemies,” Lexa insisted, raising mountains across the road of Clarke’s dreams. “I will not accept that.”

Clarke’s will knew no boundaries or chokeholds however, and she’d weave roads around mountains and over precipices to meet her goals. This time, with or without witnesses, and despite the slumber of all stars but one, Clarke would finally make promises she could keep.

“I plan to train Aden to be king and appoint him as my heir. He will carry on the bloodline and keep the crown from falling into the wrong hands.”

She knew Lexa had a soft spot for the young Earl and would gladly help her broaden his shoulders enough to trust upon them the burden of sovereignty. Meanwhile, Clarke would be so powerful and so ruthless none would dare question the absence of a king consort. Human hands and human words bore the power to devastate, but also to mend what was broken and etch new life into faded vows.

She looked out the window; the sun was setting, hanging new oaths on the sky and yielding up its holy perch for the moon to take. Sunsets held the promise of tonight, when a lifetime’s worth of dreams could finally become true.

Lexa’s voice pulled her focus back to the present. “If this worked… How would I fit into it?”

Clarke had always been bravest at eventide.

With hands that no longer hovered, she grabbed the back of Lexa’s neck and reeled her in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to post this here, but then a user asked me to and why not. I hope you liked it :)


End file.
